Killer in the Shade (15 page)

When the front-door bell rang John Cadman looked up from the library book he was reading by the light of a Calor-gas lantern, but was stopped from rising to answer it when his wife called, ‘I'll get it.'

He heard the front door open and voices, the front door close, and then his wife came into the room. She had an electric torch in her hand.

‘There's someone to see Rollo, John. He's a Mr Murphy from the
Gazette.'

‘Their crime reporter. Show him in, Judy.'

Joe Murphy came into the room when Judy Cadman held the door wide and called to him. He wore a zipped-up car coat and no hat and smelled of the beer
he had consumed.

‘My husband, Mr Murphy.' Judy Cadman's voice was lacking in enthusiasm for the newcomer.

John Cadman started to rise again, but the Irishman said quickly, ‘Don't get up, Doctor. I just came to see your nephew. He told me he would be here tonight.'

‘Well, Rollo's gone back to his own place. His fiancée said she would come and tidy up for him, then he could bring her back.'

‘What time do you expect them back?'

‘Oh, I expect it won't be for another couple of hours.'

‘In that case, I think I'd better go after them. Could I put through a call to let them know I'm coming? I mean — well, I don't want to barge in, if you understand.'

John Cadman laughed somewhat self-consciously. He did not glance in his wife's direction. He had already seen her chin go up disapprovingly. Joe Murphy might have tact of sorts, but it didn't extend to dealing with Judy Cadman's rather ingrown sensitivity.

She said coldly, ‘The phone's in the hall, Mr Murphy.'

Murphy made his call, had his offer of payment for it politely refused, and was shown into the street. After the door had closed he stood looking back at it.

‘Bedad,' he muttered, ‘I wouldn't like to be on the wrong side of that one. It's cold enough when she's smiling.'

Which, if Rollo had heard it, he would have protested was a quite unjustifiable opinion of a woman who exercised the right to make up her mind about people and keep it made up. And that was no more than Joe Murphy was doing.

It took him longer to find Rollo's flat in the streets darkened by the power cut than he had expected, but at least when he arrived he found that Carol had finished her work at tidying up and a fragrant smell of perking coffee greeted him.

‘What's happened?' was Rollo's first question.

‘Plenty.' Murphy sat nursing a cup of coffee pushed into his hands by Carol and he spoke around a cigarette he had
just lit. ‘And I shouldn't know a word about it except I've got a pal at the Yard whose name isn't Bill Hazard. There's been trouble at that house you visited after lunch.'

Carol looked at Rollo, who sat stony-faced.

‘What sort of trouble?'

‘Well, now,' said the crime reporter, after sampling the coffee and nodding approvingly at Carol, ‘it seems as soon as it got dark the house next door had a visitor and this visitor was a coloured man. He wasn't there long before both of them went into the garden and clambered into the garden of the house you visited. Now, it seems Drury had left a stakeout, the detective who had been keeping tabs on your friend' — he nodded at Carol — ‘Miss Smallwood.'

‘I didn't know anyone had been watching her.' Carol sounded surprised and even shocked.

‘No one is now,' Murphy said. ‘But Drury's man had a phone, and he went to his car and called for reinforcements. The two from next door were still in
the wrong garden. They tried to get away, and the coloured laddie ran to the garage and tried to start up some fancy car, but there was no key and he hadn't got the ignition fixed when he was hauled out. Surprise, surprise. He's got a record. More, he was in Parkhurst with Humphrey Peel just before your uncle, Miss Wilson, was released. If I know Frank Drury he won't think that a coincidence, especially as the man who had been living next door is someone else the cops have been interested in from time to time.'

Murphy stopped to remove an inch of ash from his cigarette and down the rest of his coffee.

‘More?' Carol inquired, rising and holding out her hand for the cup.

He shook his head. ‘No, thanks. That was a good cup of coffee, Miss Wilson — '

‘Call me Carol.'

‘And me, I'm Joe to my friends, aren't I, Rollo?'

It was the first time he had called Rollo by his first name.

‘That's right, Carol. Joe to his friends,' Rollo said lightly. ‘When he stops calling you Carol and tells you to stop calling him Joe you'll know something's happened to a friendship.'

For this he received a stabbing look from the crime reporter, whose sense of humour was more complicated than many who considered him a friend supposed.

‘Well, while we're still friends,' he grunted, ‘let me finish what I've come to tell you, boy. The coloured character is a Jackson Rennie with a record for violence and armed robbery. The man who was living next door is Brian Christopher Haswell. Mean anything to you?'

‘Nothing,' Rollo admitted. ‘Should it?'

‘I thought Haswell might.'

Rollo started to shake his head, but was stopped by a soft exclamation from Carol. Both men looked at her, Rollo in surprise, Murphy expectantly as he lit a fresh cigarette.

She looked from one to the other and remained watching the smile hovering around the Irishman's mouth.

‘Wait a minute, Rollo,' she said, still
looking at the other man. ‘It rings a bell. Haswell, Haswell,' she repeated for her own ear, as though the repetition should increase the sound of bell-ringing. Suddenly she swivelled round in her chair. ‘Yes,' she decided. ‘I remember. After your uncle showed me that photo of the Upper Borley chess team, Rollo, and I picked out Cecil Weddon we talked about him — Weddon, I mean. Your uncle told me his wife's name was Beryl, and at that point your aunt came downstairs from making up a bed for me, and she heard what he was saying. She said, rather critically I thought, that a bank manager should never have married Beryl Haswell. That's it, she said Haswell. That's how I remember the name. And then your uncle said you couldn't blame a sister for what her brother had been and your aunt said a funny thing.'

As she paused Carol turned to look at Rollo.

‘Well?' he asked. ‘This is still all over my head.'

‘She said,' Carol continued more slowly, ‘ ‘What I'd like to know is
where he is, and if I'm not greatly mistaken so would the police.' Your uncle smiled sort of — oh, deprecatingly, you could call it, and then your aunt went out of the room. But that was the name — Haswell. I'm sure of it.'

Her glance returned to Murphy.

He was ready to tell them and said, ‘Brian Haswell is considerably older than his sister. Years ago he had a company which went bankrupt. The public lost a great deal of money because of it. Haswell might have gone to prison, but he couldn't be found. It was rumoured he had gone abroad and not penniless. He'd been married but his wife had divorced him. The police tried to find out from her where he'd gone, but so far as I know nothing came of any of their inquiries. Haswell had got out in time, and your aunt was certainly right about one thing, Rollo boy. The police have been wanting to know for several years where Brian Haswell is.'

Rollo stood up. ‘Well, now they not only know, they've got him in custody.
Carol.' He swung about. ‘I think we would like some more coffee, if you don't mind obliging.'

Carol saw him glance at the crime reporter.

‘Sure,' she said, rising to collect the cups. ‘It might take a few minutes,' she said tactfully before going out of the room.

‘No hurry, darling.' Rollo's offhanded tone didn't deceive the Irishman.

‘Nice girl you've got, boy,' he approved. ‘I see she's got a ring back on her finger. That give you a nice feeling, huh?' His grin was almost a leer.

Rollo said shortly, ‘Look, why the hell are you here, Mr Murphy?'

‘Joe.'

‘Damn it — Joe. What's this in aid of?'

‘A big story and one Drury can't stop us using, but I'll need help. You're elected, and the experience should do you no harm. No harm at all.'

‘You don't mean that bank raid?'

‘To hell with that. My guess is that'll come to nothing. But this is something
different. This could be really something. I'm telling you, boy.'

Joe Murphy nodded sagely. ‘But I'll need help.'

‘To do what?'

The Irishman rubbed out his second cigarette. ‘Well, now, Rollo boy,' he said without looking at the young man he was addressing, ‘first tell me something. Do you mind indulging in a little larceny?'

‘Breaking the law, you mean? How little?'

‘Breaking and entering.'

‘When?'

‘After we've dropped your girl at your uncle's.'

‘In God's name, where, Joe?' Rollo felt excited and apprehensive at the same time, but the grin pasted to the broad Irish face was encouraging. At least, he hoped so.

‘The house next door to the one where you were supposed to breathe your last in the garage.' The grin on Murphy's face spread at sight of the fresh look on Rollo's face. ‘No, I'm still in my right mind, Rollo boy. But
no one knows about this pair being grabbed. Drury's off somewhere with Bill Hazard. He won't do anything tonight. But tonight is our chance. Brian Haswell didn't expect to be pinched, that's for sure. So inside that house he's been occupying for God knows how long we might find something. You must see that.'

Joe Murphy's voice was wheedling when he finished, almost begging.

Rollo said, ‘How long would we be sent down for if Drury found out?'

The Irish crime reporter shook his head. ‘Now that's where we've got an advantage. We wouldn't go to jail at all, and you should know that.'

‘Why not? Obstructing the police, perverting the course of justice, aiding and abetting a felon — hell, they could throw the book at us, Joe.'

‘And it would bounce back, Rollo boy. Wouldn't we both be first offenders? And wouldn't the
Gazette
get us the best counsel because they'd have a story most editors pray for? And wouldn't — '

‘All right, cut the blarney, Joe. And
wouldn't Drury and everyone at Scotland Yard hate us?'

‘Not if we helped Drury finish a case before it's too late.'

‘How do you mean, too late?'

‘You haven't heard the latest about the power workers' strike. No reason why you should. There's an embargo on the report till midnight. The talks are on again. They start in the morning, but nothing is to leak until delegates have been informed. That's why there's this embargo. The rumour is someone's worked out a formula for going back. If this is true they could be at work by this time tomorrow, and that would mean Peel's caper is over. The time for us to move, Rollo boy, is now.'

‘That's why you said the bank raid might come to nothing?'

‘That's why. The streets will be lit again.'

Rollo walked to the door and came back.

‘You're not conning me, Joe?' Murphy's face became twisted in an ugly look of pain. ‘All right, forget it. I'm sorry. I
apologise. It's just that — '

He stopped when Carol came in with a tray containing three cups of steaming fresh coffee. She looked quickly at the two men.

‘Something the matter?' she asked.

Rollo smiled. ‘Nothing, darling. After we've had the coffee I'm driving you back to Aunt Judy's, then I'm making a call with Joe here. It's something to do with a story for the
Gazette
, and he's kind of letting me in on the ground floor. Isn't that nice of him?'

It was just a little too glib.

Carol started handing out the coffee she had made.

‘And how is Joe going to do that?' she inquired innocently. ‘Has he a key and the owner's permission to use it?'

Joe Murphy choked over his first mouthful of coffee.

Beryl Weddon lit her third cigarette in a row and glared at the back of her husband's head. He seemed to have been reading the front page of the
Morning Gazette's
late London edition for an hour.

‘Well, for God's sake say something, Cecil,' she complained. ‘This isn't the time to keep any clever thoughts to yourself. What's going on in your head? You've been staring at that damned headline and reading the report below it for an hour — anyway, it seems like an hour.'

She sounded nervous and jumpy, which was how her husband felt, though he strove not to show it. Especially not to Beryl, whose tongue could be more cutting than a wet whip. He dragged his gaze from the headline which read, ‘End of Power Strike Imminent?' and stretched across the entire page.

‘I think we've boobed, Beryl.'

He didn't look at her, but he could feel the intensity of the look she gave him.

‘We couldn't know this would happen. Anyway,' she reminded him, ‘it's all rumour at the moment. It's still got to happen.'

‘It will. They'll crawl back, given half a chance to save their face.'

‘And an extra half per cent to the Board's wage offer.'

‘That too.'

‘So what about this raid?' she snapped. ‘If you hadn't been so bloody clever and put it off for a day it would have been over by now.' She looked at her watch. ‘Now it is likely to be called off.'

He continued staring at the newspaper on his knees. The headline apparently still held his attention.

‘I still think we boobed. We should have told Hackley he was imagining things. I think we panicked, Beryl, and the chief reason was because you pointed that gun at him. That committed us.'

‘Blame me, of course,' she sneered.
‘I didn't hit him over the head, and it wasn't my idea to leave him to die in the garage. Besides, I liked that Jensen.'